By gaining access rights from owners, users may quickly and easily access a variety of digital objects, also known as content. These digital objects include images, electronic books (“e-books”), audio recordings, video recordings, computer applications, and other forms of information transferable over a communication network such as the internet.
As use of digital objects increases, users may wish to transfer the digital objects to a personalized data store to provide better accessibility and a safer and more secure location for storage than the user's own electronic device. However, several problems manifest when transferring a digital object. While a physical object such as a copy of a paperback book only exists in one place at a time, digital objects can be easily and inexpensively copied without loss of fidelity. Thus, easy copying and repeated sale of the same digital object is possible, potentially eliminating scarcity of the digital object. Because of this, many owners implement digital rights management to prevent such impermissible transfers. Furthermore, the digital object as originally transferred to the initial purchaser may have license restrictions or other limitations on permissible use or further transfer. For example, a license to use a free download of a popular song may expire after a few days.
An environment which allows users to effectively and permissibly transfer a new or “used” digital object to a personalized data store, which maintains the scarcity of the digital object and the digital rights management of the owner, is thus desired. A “used” digital object is one to which a user has legitimately obtained access or ownership rights (hereinafter “access rights”), and to which the user may permissibly transfer to another user.